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Zimbabwe Won’t Charge Dentist Who Killed Cecil the Lion | Zimbabwe Won’t Charge Dentist Who Killed Cecil the Lion |
(about 9 hours later) | |
JOHANNESBURG — Just this summer, Zimbabwe was pressing to extradite an American dentist involved in the hunt that killed a lion known as Cecil, with the environment minister denouncing him as a “foreign poacher” who had absconded home. | |
On Monday, it changed course, saying not only that the dentist would not be charged but that he was welcome to return. “He is free to come, not for hunting, but as a tourist,” Environment Minister Oppah Muchinguri said of the dentist, Dr. Walter J. Palmer of Minnesota. | |
The killing of the 13-year-old lion in July outside Hwange National Park in northwestern Zimbabwe set off a fierce outcry among animal rights advocates. Dr. Palmer, 55, an experienced big-game hunter, became the target of furious attacks on social media sites and closed his dental practice for more than a month. | |
But Zimbabwe said Monday that his documentation for the hunt had been proper, as he had said. | |
Officials had initially reported that Dr. Palmer and a professional hunting guide had illegally lured Cecil out of his protected habitat onto a neighboring farm. At a news conference in July, Ms. Muchinguri described Dr. Palmer as a “foreign poacher” who had broken Zimbabwe’s laws. | |
But Zimbabwe’s authorities declined to make a formal extradition request before a deadline last month. The trial of the professional hunter, Theo Bronkhorst, who has also denied any wrongdoing, has been postponed. | |
Dr. Palmer has said he was unaware that British researchers were monitoring the lion. And amid the barrage of criticism, other voices pushed back. “We Don’t Cry for Lions” became a trending topic on Twitter after a Zimbabwean, Goodwell Nzou, included the phrase in a New York Times Op-Ed article, adding that “no lion has ever been beloved” in his village. “They are objects of terror,” he wrote. | |
Many airlines responded to the fury by banning the transport of animal trophies, which are prized by big-game hunters. Many African nations, and some conservationists, support trophy hunting as a way to finance the overall protection of wildlife. |
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